The Fictionality Of History

Norman Mailer(1923-2007) is one of the major contemporary writers in America, innovator of the nonfiction novel. In the 1960s and 1970s, Mailer was an important figure in the development of nonfiction writing. His nonfiction works include The Armies of the Night, Of a Fire on the Moon, The Executioner's Song and Marilyn: A Biography, etc.. Their subject matters are mainly about political, cultural and scientific events and historical figures in contemporary America, such as murderer Gary Gilmore, screen star Marilyn Monroe, etc..From the perspective of New Historicism, this thesis analyses Mailer's several nonfiction works. These analyses include the historicity and fictionality in his works, and how he handles the relationship between history and fiction or reality and imagination.This paper is composed of four parts. The first chapter is introduction, which briefly introduces Norman Mailer, some of his works and New Historicism. Then it offers a brief overview of the previous analyses of Mailer and his works, and the purpose and significance of this thesis.Chapter two concentrates on the historical events and figures in Mailer's nonfiction works. As a nonfiction writer, Mailer presents history and reality in his works, describing the historicity in the anti-Vietnam War march on the Pentagon, the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, Murderer Gary Gilmore and Screen Star Marilyn Monroe.Chapter three is the main body of this thesis. It mainly probes into the way Mailer mixes historical and fictional elements together. Mailer breaks through the traditional method of producing news report and biography by mixing fictional techniques into his works. Through the novelist's imagination, he reshapes some historical events and figures in American history, presenting them to us more truthfully.The fourth chapter is the conclusion. According to New Historicism, only through the reading of historical documents, can we get to know historical event and figure. And because historical documents are produced by subjective act, thus they have fictive and imaginative element. By analyzing Mailer's nonfiction works from the perspective of New Historicism, this thesis comes to the conclusion that history and fiction, reality and imagination interweave with each other. In a deeper sense, the relationship between them is dialectical.